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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Texas tonight executed Timothy Adams. He was the second person executed in Texas in 2011 and the 466th person executed in Texas since 1982. The next execution in Texas is set for April 5 when Cleve Foster is scheduled for execution.

"God is still in control," her father, retired Houston firefighter Columbus Adams, told her as he supported her in his arms until a wheelchair could be rolled into position. Adams' mother, Wilma Adams, muttered, "He's going to sleep. He's going to sleep. He's going to a better place. He's going to get to see Jesus."

Adams, put to death for the February 2002 murder of his 19-month-old son, offered no final statement.

He nodded to the witness room containing his family, who had made public pleas that his life be spared. Then, as the poisons began to flow, he breathed heavily and closed his eyes.

The drugs were administered at 6:21 p.m. Adams was declared dead 10 minutes later. He was the 466th killer to be put to death since the state resumed executions in 1982, and the second this year.

Beaumont case cited

In a witness room reserved for the family members of the victim, Adams' former wife Emma Adams wept softy as the killer stopped breathing. A male companion comforted her by placing his arm around her waist.

As others in the room watched wordlessly, weeping could be heard from the adjoining room occupied by the killer's family.

Adams, 42, shot his son, Timothy Adams Jr. during a 2½-hour police standoff at his Houston home. Adams' attorneys contended the shooting came during an emotional crisis prompted by his wife's decision to leave him.

Adams had no prior criminal record, and exhibited exemplary behavior in his seven years on death row, they said.

As the date for Adams' execution approached, members of his family and church publicly pleaded with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare him. Emma Adams did not join in their call for mercy.

In that appeal, David Dow, a Texas Defender Service lawyer and University of Houston law professor, argued that a 2007 court ruling in a Beaumont woman's baby-killing case should be applied retroactively to Adams.

Appeals justices in the Beaumont case found that the mother no longer presented a continuing danger because her violence had been directed solely at her child and, in prison, she likely never again would become a mother.

The high court rejected Adams' appeal shortly before 6 p.m.

Below are photos of people gathered at the Texas Capitol to protest today's execution.